You Need to Be Bored. Here's Why. — Transcript

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1. 0:00ARTHUR BROOKS: You need to be bored.
2. 0:01You will have less meaning and you
3. 0:03will be more depressed if you never are bored.
4. 0:05I mean, it couldn't be clearer.
5. 0:10Let me give you the good side of boredom in general.
6. 0:14Boredom is a tendency for us to not be occupied
7. 0:18otherwise cognitively, which switches over our thinking
8. 0:22system to use a part of our brain
9. 0:24that's called the default mode network.
10. 0:27That sounds fancy.
11. 0:27It's really not.
12. 0:28The default mode network is a bunch
13. 0:30of structures in your brain that switch
14. 0:32on when you don't have anything else to think about.
15. 0:35So you forgot your phone and you're sitting
16. 0:37at a light, for example.
17. 0:39That's when your default mode network goes on.
18. 0:42We don't like it.
19. 0:43My colleague in the psychology department
20. 0:45here at Harvard, Dan Gilbert, he did experiments
21. 0:48where people had to sit in a room for 15
22. 0:50minutes with instructions to do absolutely nothing,
23. 0:53and there was nothing in the room to do,
24. 0:55except there was a button in front of them
25. 0:57that they could push.
26. 0:58And if they did, they gave themselves
27. 1:00a painful electric shock.
28. 1:02Sit there bored, or get a shock.
29. 1:04A big majority of the participants
30. 1:05gave themselves shocks instead of thinking about nothing.
31. 1:08We don't like boredom.
32. 1:09Boredom is boredom is terrible.
33. 1:11Why is boredom so bad?
34. 1:12Well, because the default mode network makes
35. 1:15us think about things that might be kind of uncomfortable.
36. 1:18When you think about nothing while your mind wanders
37. 1:20and thinks about, for example, big questions of meaning
38. 1:23in your life.
39. 1:24What does my life mean?
40. 1:25You go to uncomfortable existential questions
41. 1:28when you're bored.
42. 1:29That turns out to be incredibly important, incredibly good.
43. 1:32One of the reasons we have such an explosion of depression
44. 1:35and anxiety in our society today is because people actually
45. 1:38don't know the meaning of their lives,
46. 1:40much less so in previous generations.
47. 1:42Tons of data show this, and furthermore, we're
48. 1:45not even looking.
49. 1:46Why not?
50. 1:48I'll tell you why not.
51. 1:49We figured out a way to eliminate boredom.
52. 1:52We've been able, almost completely,
53. 1:56to shut off the default mode network in our brains.
54. 1:59How?
55. 2:00The answer is that thing in your pocket with the screen,
56. 2:03which you take out even when you're standing on the street
57. 2:06corner waiting for the light to change,
58. 2:07is like, I might have to wait here for 15 seconds.
59. 2:12What are you doing?
60. 2:12You're actually trying to not be bored because the default mode
61. 2:15network is mildly uncomfortable, because it sends you
62. 2:18to the types of questions that you can't get your mind around.
63. 2:20You can't get your arms around.
64. 2:22Well, that's a big problem.
65. 2:23That's a doom loop of meaning.
66. 2:26If every time you're slightly bored pull out your phone,
67. 2:29it's going to get harder and harder for you to find meaning,
68. 2:32and that's the recipe for depression and anxiety
69. 2:36and a sense of hollowness, which, by the way,
70. 2:39are all through the roof.
71. 2:42I get it.
72. 2:43You don't want to be bored.
73. 2:44You need to be bored.
74. 2:46Be bored more.
75. 2:47Tomorrow, when you go to the gym in the morning
76. 2:49after you wake up, don't take your phone.
77. 2:52Can you handle it?
78. 2:53Not listening to a podcast while you're working out.
79. 2:56Just being in your head.
80. 2:57I promise you, you'll have your most interesting ideas
81. 3:00while you're working out without devices.
82. 3:02It's probably been a long time since you've done that.
83. 3:04Commute with nothing, not even the radio.
84. 3:07Can you do that?
85. 3:08Start getting better at periods that
86. 3:10are 15 minutes and longer of boredom,
87. 3:13and watch your life change.
88. 3:16Number one, you'll be less bored with ordinary things
89. 3:18in your life.
90. 3:19If you get better at the skill of boredom,
91. 3:21you'll be less bored with your job.
92. 3:22You'll be less bored with your relationships.
93. 3:24You'll be less bored with the things that
94. 3:25are going on around you.
95. 3:27But more importantly, you'll start digging
96. 3:29into the biggest questions in your life, purpose, meaning,
97. 3:33coherence, significance.
98. 3:36And who knows?
99. 3:38You might just get happier.
100. 3:40People ask me all the time, is the doctor
101. 3:42taking his own prescriptions?
102. 3:44And the answer is, yes.
103. 3:45Yes, I am.
104. 3:46I'm prone to the same pathologies as anybody else
105. 3:49because I have the same brain chemistry as everybody else.
106. 3:51So what do I do to fight that?
107. 3:52And the answer is, well, I do a number of things.
108. 3:54I have a no device policy after 7:00 in the afternoon.
109. 3:59I don't sleep with my phone.
110. 4:01We don't have devices when we have meals in my family.
111. 4:06Because we're there for each other.
112. 4:07We're not there for people who aren't there.
113. 4:10Three, I have regular social media
114. 4:12and screen cleanses where I don't use my device
115. 4:16for longer periods of time.
116. 4:18First, it's like children screaming in my head
117. 4:22because that's how dopamine is saying, get the phone,
118. 4:25get the phone.
119. 4:26That's addiction.
120. 4:27But it calms down and I feel better.
121. 4:30And I feel sort of blessed by the end.
122. 4:33And I pick the phone up by the end
123. 4:35because I have to check my emails.
124. 4:36And I have to be a normal, functioning, connected person
125. 4:39in the world.
126. 4:40But it does remind me that my life doesn't have to revolve
127. 4:43around these devices.
128. 4:44These protocols are really, really helpful
129. 4:46and I recommend them to anybody and everybody.
130. 4:49Don't sleep with your phone.
131. 4:50No phones during meals.
132. 4:52Regular social media fasts.
133. 4:54You'll get better.
134. 4:56People worry that if they do these things,
135. 4:58they're going to miss something.
136. 4:59There are ways that you can remedy that.
137. 5:01One of the things that you can do
138. 5:02is you can have your phone on.
139. 5:03You're just not looking at it, and there's
140. 5:05only one or two numbers that can reach you
141. 5:07in case of emergencies.
142. 5:09Phones can do that by the way.
143. 5:10If you don't have to do that, ask your kid.
144. 5:13But don't use emergencies in as an excuse.
145. 5:15Here's something that's not an emergency.
146. 5:18What's going on Twitter.
147. 5:19That's not an emergency answer nothing.
148. 5:23It doesn't matter.
149. 5:24The news can wait.
150. 5:25Seriously your grandparents didn't
151. 5:27what was going on every single second in Washington, DC.
152. 5:30You're killing yourself with this stuff.
153. 5:33Are you kidding me?
154. 5:34It's bad for you.
155. 5:35So let me say it straight to my kids.
156. 5:38Put down your phones.
157. 5:41You need more meaning in your life.
158. 5:43And so do I.